3-year-old gunshot victim prepares to leave hospital but not going home
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The family of 3-year-old Olivia Walker has been at her bedside at a Minneapolis hospital all week as she’s recovered from a gunshot wound.
Back on Saturday, Olivia was sleeping in her bed when bullets flew into the family’s home in the Harrison Neighborhood, on Fifth Avenue North in Minneapolis.
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“It changed big time, it changed a lot,” said Alex Walker, Olivia’s father.
Olivia underwent surgery at Hennepin Healthcare, a Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, earlier in the week for the wound on the side of her head.
Three-year-old Olivia Walker prepares to leave a hospital after getting hit by a stray bullet in Minneapolis. (Family)
In the days since then, her family waited to see how she’d recover from treatment. A big change came, on Thursday, as Olivia was walking and talking and playing dress-up in the hospital.
The family is now preparing to leave, but not go home.
“It’s going to be too hard to go there and remember everything that happened — it was a happy home for us and our family, now it’s not a happy place for us anymore,” Felicia Dumas, Olivia’s mother, said.
The family said it won’t be returning to the home where the shooting took place, where bullet holes remain in the door and walls.
“Our job is to help people heal socially, emotionally and mentally after they are done healing at the hospital, so we help people get back on their feet,” Kentral Galloway, director of the Next Step Program, said.
Olivia’s parents said they are working with Next Step to find a place to stay while they work to find long-term housing.
“Being the survivor of violent crimes just doesn’t go way, it’s something that’s going to be with them the rest of their life, so they are going to need support to deal with it as they cope,” Galloway said.
The Next Step program is a partnership between Hennepin Healthcare, North Memorial, the city of Minneapolis and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Support includes a variety of services, including finding a safe place to live, access to resources to manage trauma and help with post-discharge medical care.
“It’s great to have programs to help out families going through the same thing,” Walker said.
While this family’s life has changed in a way they never expected, they are doing whatever’s next together.
Friends and coworkers created a fundraising page to help Olivia’s family. Click here to see that.